The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music

I ordered this book for my Stepdad for Father's Day, as he loves rock music and having lots of fun trivia facts up his sleeve. My stepdad is sometimes hard to please.. and he's generally not a big book reader. This book was a huge hit! He sat down to read the book immediately after opening it and sat until he had looked through the whole thing. I am very pleased with this purchase!

This was a gift for my boss who loves rock and roll history. He was very excited when he opened this, so I would say I hit this one out of the park! Thank you.

It was everything I wanted and more! This book is the most beautiful thing I own. I consider it my prized possession. When I first opened up the box it came in, tear of joy streamed down my face because I knew it had finally came. This book will help you move mountains and transcend spacial boundaries. From the moment I caressed its slightly warm paper back cover (because it was used) I knew this was my true god and that just by holding it I was home. In short if you by this book it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

The book is of interest to any rock historian, or to anyone interested in history from the birth of rock and roll around 1953 through the 1960s and into the 1970s. The book is in black and white, no color, and some of the script is also black and white, that is, it does a good job of chronicling the major influences of rock from the beginning until the end of classic rock and metal, sometimes insightfully, sometimes in a Wikipedia-style of writing. This is like the meat and potatoes version of rock history. It offers this interesting insight on The Who, "A big part of the Who's glory was its anger, its hostility," definitly true, "and a big part of that came from the utter frustation of not breaking through to a bigger audiance." Don't reall think the Who's anger came from not being able to break through to a bigger audiance. It was a part of who they were. In the section on Elton John, it more or less choronologizes his works, but does little to offer insight into who Elton John was, what drove him, his hangups, problems with drugs and alcohol, it gives you a straight glimpse of his music through the ears and eyes of music, as a history. So, for the researcher looking for a straight, neatly organized, easy to digest history, with some quotable inisghts, it does fairly well. If you are looking to go a little deeper, there are probably other works which may give more insight into the artists, their lives, and what moved them, drove them, their loves and demons, etc.

Bought used and was still super nice just had a couple highlighter marks but no biggie!

I loaned this book to a radio DJ friend from The Day. He loved it so much will use it for reference on his radio show. I will order another copy for myself. It is a fantastic overview of the history of rock and roll with many authors from the era.

I bought this for my 12 year old son. He carries it everywhere and won't shut up about it. He asked questions nonstop at first. Now after 6 months, he knows everything about RandR. Seriously. Don't even think you know more!

This was purchased for my daughter for her college 70s and 80s Rock History Class. She loves music so much and this book was a great addition for her class and for her collection after the class was over.